White Torture
by UglyTruth
Summary: Meeting up out of the blue with a sworn enemy and ex-lover in difficult circumstances does not always end the way it should.


The sheer purity of the colour blinded him as he managed to crack open his eyes.

Fuck, it was bright. The whitest room he had ever been in.

He knew exactly what kind of things happened in such rooms, which also explained the uncomfortable position he was in.

He could barely feel his hands in the tight bonds.

His feet were strapped to the chair legs, rendering his sitting position on the straight-backed chair extremely unpleasant.

Raising his eyes off the stunningly spotless ground to scan the room, they were immediately drawn to the single bringer of colour in the whiteness.

She was resting against the wall, eyes closed as though she was meditating, arms loosely hanging at her sides so they touched the surface behind her.

Although seeming utterly at ease, almost asleep, he knew she was the last person he could judge on what she appeared to be doing.

As he raked her body with his gaze, her eyes slowly opened, staring at the ceiling, as though she was completely unaware of him.

Her head titled in his direction, gaze following, and he felt pinned down as he registered the hatred in her stare.

He stopped roaming her body with his eyes, however enticing the memories that it brought up were, and returned her stare with cool measure.

He figured her head was working overdrive, determining her options, just as much as he was.

With the minimal difference that she was free to move around, he was intruding on her territory and she was immortal. Not hard to guess who had the upper hand here.

He didn't see her move; once again she was too fast for his human eye, until she was standing right in front of him.

He refused to look her in the face though, refused to look up from where he sat to withhold her the pleasure of feeling the power she had over him. Ironically enough, it gave him quite a good view of her chest.

Apparently, she noticed it too and pulled his head back, a hand at his throat, the other clawed in his hair.

He saw that her veins were visible through her skin, protruding more than they normally did as though she had done intensive exercise. Her pupils were also wider than they should have been the brightness of the room and not properly focused.

It wasn't hard to count two and two together – she was starving. By the look in her face he could tell that she wouldn't even care for his consent.

"Yes?" he asked, plastering a smile of complete innocence on his face as he waited for a reaction.

He could see the battle raging inside her as she considered giving him the torture he deserved or letting her feelings get the better of her. He could see her eyes drifting over to his jugular before fixing back on his.

"You don't deserve any mercy" she whispered, strangled pain in her tone.

He didn't move a muscle yet he couldn't deny himself that he had missed her voice, almost as much as the person it belonged to. Regret usually came and went as he continued with his work but she…she had been special.

Yet her words were undoubtedly true. He was a bastard and surely didn't deserve the nice treatment from her.

"I'm aware," He replied just as quietly, "You're not going to ask me this time, am I right?"

Her expression was indefinable for a moment before her face hardened and she let out a dark chuckle. "You're smarter than you look, human"

It was the first time that her bite brought him pain as her emotions flooded his senses. He hadn't offered her his blood and that alone seemed to make it unpleasant.

The warmth of her lips on his skin did not cover the sensation of her rough blood intake.

He had already anticipated this strategy and starting digging in the back of his mind to find what he needed. She had received her little triumph, now it was time for him to pour some salt into the wound.

--

She felt him moving beneath her hands, yet she paid no heed to his pitiful attempts as she drank from him. The liquid filled her insides with heat and she felt her powers returning with every mouthful.

She had almost forgotten how intense and strangely unique he tasted.

Memories came of their own accord and she did her best to push them away, to remain in the here and now.

She had to remember her duty and how he had sold her out without anything near to a guilty face.

That was when she suddenly realized that the body underneath her was no longer his, just as his blood had suddenly mutated into something than ran down her throat bitterly and almost made her gag.

What the hell?!

She pulled back, completely forgetting all care and accidentally tearing open the wounds she had given him as she raised her head from his. Her eyes went wide, first with wonder then with disbelief.

Finally she settled on narrowing them ferociously at the enemy, even though it was hard to do so as the person she was facing was no longer the one she blamed.

Or perhaps it was.

_Her_ own eyes stared back at her haughtily, her lips slightly parted in an innocent smile, with dark hair reaching down to hide her bare chest.

Those were her legs, stuck in the dark shorts and her hands, her feet, which were tied to the chair where a prisoner had just been.

She should have guessed he would pull a stunt like that.

She had almost forgotten that even though he was unable to move, his abilities had not been restrained in any way. Nobody knew how to anyway. He had hinted it months back but she had not worried about what he had mentioned.

Now here he was, looking back at her with her own face and body, taunting her as he had done before.

She had never had to cope with such a situation.

His thoughts were of no use to her, he was practiced at keeping them in check, and even so, she knew he was a master at improvising babble within his mind.

She would just have to keep reminding herself that it was the man who had destroyed a chapter of her life, the man who had driven her crazy and in the end had sold her out to the men she had been avoiding all her existence.

The one who had to suffer not only for what he had been attempting to do here, but to pay for how he had played with her.

Taking a deep breath, she hit herself in the face, watching with grim pleasure how his…her head was thrown to the side with the impact and blood started running out of the nose.

The frustration at the fact that he still had that smile on her face bothered her, fueled her anger as she punched him again. Why couldn't she make him cower in fear? Why was he still fucking smiling and shaking his head at her?

She paused in her beatings, licking the blood from her fist as she waited for him to recover. His eyes held hers but she could tell nothing out of them.

He wasn't angry as it seemed but the respect she had hoped for was still from evident. In fact, he smirked at her with her own full bloody lips.

"I never knew you were _this_ angry at yourself. Perhaps you've just been waiting for a chance to give yourself a good kick without looking like a fool"

Her blood boiled and she smacked him across the face, slightly harder than intended. "I tend to remember what a pitiful coward is hiding under the flimsy mask" she spat.

He lost the easy-going mood along with the smile.

Her, no, his eyes vanished under the thick-lashed lids as he dropped his gaze to the floor again. "So, didn't you say you were going to torture some valuable information out of me?"

How did he know how easily to make her fume at her own incompetence?

She controlled her instinct to injure him worse, with an iron fist, knowing he healed at human pace after all. Instead she snorted and retreated to the opposite wall, leaning against it lightly.

"What else do I need to know? You broke in here with the orders of killing the head of operations. Carrying out the plan, you murdered guard fifteen to take on his form and infiltrate the building. Too bad you weren't prepared for me"

He didn't respond at first but when he did, his tone sounded genuinely humble. "I deserve to die then? An eye for an eye"

It was her turn to stay silent, staring at him with an expression that suggested nothing while she was inwardly battling her feelings with cold logic.

Of course he deserved to die, not just because of her personal grudge, but everything her had done…to their friends, certainly also to countless others before them.

God, it annoyed her to no end, how he was saying all this with her face, her voice, her eyes, probing into the identical ones glaring back. It felt like she was confessing sins to herself.

She let his comment hang in the air, knowing that the nameless guard's death had nothing to do with the hatred that had been circulating within her.

He did her the favor of finally switching bodies, relieving her of the frustration, but not into his own – it was that of child.

A child you wouldn't look twice at if it was to pass you. Mouse brown hair, dim grey eyes that seemed to look permanently shy and a sullen mouth in a thin face. There was nothing special about the boy in the suddenly too-large boxers and at first she didn't realize his reason for choosing the pathetic body of a human kid.

That was until she saw him pull up his skinny legs and stand up on the chair, suddenly entirely free of his binds.

Damn it. She had not thought of that.

She knew it didn't make a difference whether or not he was tied up since there was no chance he'd find a way out of this white box unless she let him out. Nor could he physically harm her much, since she was at least twice as powerful in body and mind.

Nonetheless, something had changed.

Suddenly she was not in control anymore. H was on the same level as her and she could not rely on herself to be consequent if he continued mocking her with his ability.

He had full control of his body now and he had her emotions caught in his hands thanks to his incredible ability.

She too, knew him too well and she knew he would take advantage of that.

Apparently he had the same thought because he approached her, fixing those huge grey eyes on her face with such an innocence she felt her chest constrict.

No! Remember who that is! What he has done. What he will do if you give in now.

But she could see every single rib under the thin skin, the rising and falling of that terribly narrow chest as well as the veins shining on the inside of his bony wrist as he touched his bruising face. She had done that.

It just proved that she was truly cruel.

She shook her head in denial. No, she couldn't afford to feel guilty when it was him. _Him_.

She took a deep breath, trying not to focus on the blood running through the frail body in front of her and instead laughed harshly in his face. "Neat little trick. Congrats, you made it out of the chair. Now what's the plan?"

Those dark-ringed irises looked at her quizzically and the boy's face split into a soft smile.

The voice coming from that little one was quiet and had a strange ring to it. The words spoken seemed so unfitting for such a young person, it made her quiver uncomfortably.

"I'm not scared to die you know," he said it without any doubt, "But I don't think you will"

She hissed, both angrily and shocked, "Don't try me, I'm warning you now"

"Are you afraid?" those misty angel eyes were wide.

She put on a stoic face, trying to sound indifferent even though the words had hit home.

Not that she was afraid of him, no. She was afraid of herself, of what she would do when he made his decision and more…could she kill him? Would she be able to?

"If you must know, after I get what I want out of you, you're not my problem anymore" she lightly shrugged one shoulder and set her mouth in an annoyed line.

This guy was not going to have her walls crashing into a heap. Not again.

The child's eyes grew even wider and he suddenly fell onto his knees, the slippery cotton boxers sending his body sliding to the side as he lost his balance on the polished tiles. His breathing was suddenly labored and his body trembling slightly all over.

From one second to another, the balance between her feelings and her control had been had been tilted again.

Naturally, her motherly instincts immediately kicked in and she was overcome with the urge to leap over and help the kid. Yet she forbade herself to.

_It's not a kid_, she chanted in her head …not a kid. God, she was starting to sound like him.

His bony hands pressed against the tiles, she could hear him taking deep breaths, trying to regain control of his body. It didn't seem to work.

And then, suddenly, the smell of blood was back in the air and her body twitched involuntarily. She needed it…she wanted it.

The kid had bitten his tongue and she could already taste it in the air. Apparently she had not paid enough attention to how thirsty she was before.

No matter. There was enough of it in the room and she was perfectly prepared to kill for it.

Wait…what? No. She wasn't a killer. He wasn't here for feeding her; it was her job to pull information out of him. Nothing more, nothing less.

But then again…drinking from him would make her task so much easier…and she recalled how good he tasted. Not human but not like any creature of the night.

Unique. Just the thought made her dizzy with need.

Not a second had passed and the 'child' on the floor was just starting to push himself back onto his knees, having recovered from the weak moment. The body would not last much longer.

It was too undernourished, too ravaged from sickness and hardship to survive more than a few days more.

He had known that from the moment he decided to add this one to his collection that it was only meant for short-term use. Now was the time to change back.

He was sick of these weak muscles and the foggy vision and it had not brought out the reaction that he had anticipated. She had not forgotten all barriers and cautions to help the sickly boy.

No motherly instincts in a vampire as it seemed. Oh well, he wasn't short of ideas to get her to come around.

His own body was the one he preferred anyway. After having experienced so many different forms and sexes he was most comfortable in the body he had been born with.

He enjoyed the feeling of bones shifting and lengthening, muscles building up, lungs healing and body growing. Not to forget the fact that he wasn't opposed to his own face. Especially the eyes, he found that they had a nice intimidating effect when he wanted.

Not many knew this face, or if they did they were unaware that it was his true one.

As soon as the shift was complete and his skin had stopped burning blissfully, he leaned back on his heels, savoring the feeling of his undamaged, healthy limbs under him.

That was until an incredible force knocked him backward, making him land on his back and throwing his head against the ground.

Pain exploded in his head and dizziness overtook him for a few moments. What the hell… she must have sprung at him. Knocking him to the floor and effectively pinning him.

That of course explained why he felt his abdomen being pressed downward against a horizontal surface and why his throat had issues taking in enough air.

The fall had also made his jaws smack together quite painfully and he could taste blood welling up on his tongue again.

He scrunched his lids together and opened his eyes to stare his torturer in the face.

--

He was back. The man she hated. The man she loved. Did it make a difference? The borderline between the two had grown so terribly thin that she didn't distinguish anymore.

It was her job to know everything he was up to, everything about him and his thoughts and dreams. Everything confined in his mind.

Now that he was back in the body she had once been very attached to.

The dark hair defined against the white tiles beneath his head, pale throat exposed, and those grey eyes. More silver than grey, with black rings, similar to the child's he had just imitated. His were different though, they harbored cunning and knowledge and more than once before, they had looked distressed with guilt.

Like when he had been lying to her…straight to her face.

The hand at his throat clenched as bloodlust jerked through her body again - reminding her of her need to finally satiate herself. He wouldn't dare change again into somebody whose blood was of no use to her.

In her crazed state, she knew she would immediately punish him without thinking of the damage she might do.

Her thumb stroked the blue path down his neck, where the skin was stretched taught due to his position.

He was looking at her, trying to stare her down, but when her finger slid down the line of his artery, he suddenly shuddered, much like the child had, and his eyes grew unfocused.

She couldn't detect fear, anxiety or defeat in his eyes nor his aura…why was his body reacting this way? It couldn't be that his memories were clicking back to where they had been in just the same position.

She refused to accept that he would feel such a thing anymore. Or that she had deluded herself he ever had. He had left her.

Or should she…and use it against him?

She couldn't get herself to think about that right now. All she wanted was right in front of her, already in her hands. All that was left for her to do was…

Her thumb pressed down and she felt the liquid bunch up as pressure was applied. Her teeth followed suit, digging into the spot and feeling the release as the skin split. Warmth spilled into her mouth for the second time that hour, and her insides were immediately on fire.

If there was a benefit about being what she was, then it was the feeling she experienced every time she fed. No human could compare to when they ate a meal.

It was the life energy, the freshness of the nutrition, the sheer power with which the blood exploded inside her.

His body convulsed underneath her before it died down to a fine trembling which she could feel distantly through their clothing.

The more she fed, the more her head cleared and she finally concentrated on the task at hand, pushing the bliss of feeding to a distant part of her mind. She separated her mind from her body, sensing her physical actions faintly but focused on something very different.

She delved into his thoughts, tugging at memories, peeking into emotions and searching between truth and lies.

There was an enclosed space that she couldn't immediately penetrate and figured it was his special ability that lay locked in the back of his mind. Her curiosity and determinedness to overcome all his walls was too great to resist, even though she had not yet found everything she needed.

It felt like an elastic membrane that had her bouncing back whenever she tried to push through to get to what was inside. Should her mind have had a jaw to clench together with stress, then it would have.

This was tiring her and making her boil inwardly. There was no barrier that she hadn't breached before, especially not in a human.

This one couldn't be that different. However much she pushed though, it didn't have any effect whatsoever.

She decided on another strategy, probing the walls for an opening, a weaker spot that usually could be found in any mind – it had to collapse sooner or later under pressure. There was none.

She was infuriated with herself as she realized there was no way in. It was a locked up castle and whatever was inside there was surely an extremely precious piece of information.

She cursed this man over and over again for being the way he was, for taunting her and for having a part of him that she couldn't enter, couldn't steal from him.

It was so…unaccustomed for her to accept defeat but she knew could not waste any more energy on penetrating this section. She had orders.

The heat flaring in her body had already peaked and yet she kept taking more blood.

She needed just a few more moments until she had what she was told to find. His body had long gone slack and unresisting underneath her but the tremors running over his skin had gotten more violent.

When she finally returned into her own body, withdrawing from his mind and removing her fangs from his neck, she saw that his eyes were glassy, staring at the ceiling.

Shock flared through her. Had she killed him?

No, that couldn't be, she had felt his pulse when she withdrew…but she purposely hadn't put him in a trance when she had taken from him. What was happening here?

It could be an act…but his horror-filled vision and trembling, pale skin were signs of weakness, which he was bound not to show in front of her. Especially in _this_ kind of situation.

No, something was terribly wrong here.

She took his jaw in her hand none too gently, shaking his head a little but without any reaction from him.

Feeling a strange kind of fear rising up in her stomach, she moved from her straddling position to crawl over to his head, searching for a pulse once again. She found it and while it was definitely unsteady and erratic, it was far from being weak.

So it was not his body but his mind that was somehow shutting down. Frantically, she slapped his cheek, trying to make him break out of his reverie.

What the hell was going on?

--

His head was shrieking. He wanted to tear it apart, to make the pain stop but every movement he tried to make ended up numbing his limbs even further.

Memories were drowning him and whenever he tried to gasp in air, a new wave would make him tumble back down to where he started.

He was suffocating under the guilt, the fear and the terrible longing to be free of everything he had done.

Death was circling him, looming over him in shadows and shoving long-forgotten faces into his vision. Every single goddamn person he had handed over to their death, knowing full-well what he was doing.

Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop… he couldn't grasp a single coherent thought anymore, he didn't who he was, where he was, hell, what was he?

A murderer, no doubt. A coldhearted bastard. A coward. A proud jerk.

Words flooding his senses, emotion letting him know what they meant where his brain failed to make the connection. Too much death, too much pain to pay attention to anything else.

Once more pain erupted where he knew his face must be but the faint stinging went under in the turmoil of his head. It was like an explosion that just went on and on without the source ever running out.

An outside voice reached his ears, he thought he recognized the sound… but then it was gone in another shockwave of memories.

_Fuck, just erase it already! _

Make him forget everything again. Pocket it back where it was and seal it up and never let him see it again.

Suddenly, there was change. He couldn't tell what it was, but something was different.

The pain hadn't lessened, nor had the amount of images flooding him but there was…a presence that had not been there before.

It felt like a light breeze, rummaging around his head and beginning to herd his thoughts like sheep. He relished in the bliss it brought, even though he couldn't see it behind the curtain of dark memories surrounding him.

In the same moment he focused on them he realized that even they were moving back, fading away from his helpless form.

The scorching cold left him slowly and was replaced by a warm caress that filled his insides.

What was this? Had his body died under the stress it had caused itself and he was finally free of any burdens? Somehow, he wished it was so.

The minutes passed in reality as he regained his vision to find himself staring at blinding whiteness.

Heaven? He shouldn't hope as much.

He could feel his body. It was beyond sensing…it was as though he had control over every nerve and fiber that made up what was _him_.

Everything was hyper-sensitive and alert to any stimuli around, as though he had been born to a new world.

He realized his face was wet and stiff and that he was trembling slightly.

The air rushing into his lungs was a relief to the crushing darkness he'd faced in the confines of his mind.

His awareness had returned and he back in the world that was less cruel to him. Or perhaps, the source of the unforgiving virtual world inside his head.

He blinked several times, trying to focus, trying to remember where he was and what had happened.

His eyes landed on the lightly panting figure sitting on his left, hands pressed against the floor and knees angled on either side. Her long dark tresses forbade him to catch sight of her face but he recognized her even without looking.

His enemy. His love. Something she could not, and would never want to, know.

She raised her head then, distress on her pretty face and looking at him with a peculiar mixture of exhaustion, disgust and sorrow. She looked close to breaking apart.

It was in that moment he realized who the warm breeze in his head must have been. That she had seen…she had seen all that…

For those few seconds everything was forgotten.

Their reason for being here together in the white box, the orders, the responsibility, the pain, the betrayal and the hatred separating them for so long.

Their eyes were locked and they both knew the truth. She had witnessed what he had done and hated him. He had deceived her and fallen for her just before the day came when he sold her out.

They had fought and suppressed their undeniable affection and intrigue of another until now.

Now she had seen everything. She had been inside his mind. It was over…he had nothing he could hide anymore. He couldn't even pretend not to care.

The conflict in her eyes proved that she understood too. Now she didn't know how to react.

A helpless kitten stuck on a tree with no way down when the obvious path was to plunge right on down and hope for the best. She was no longer the vicious immortal that had bowled him over minutes ago – she was the woman he wanted back than and still did now.

Words were not shared. None were needed.

He felt his abdominal muscles constrict almost painfully as he attempted to sit up. He never left her eyes as he did so and while her posture became reluctant as he suddenly filled the gap and was in close proximity, she stayed entirely still.

He could make himself out in her eyes that were shinier than he could recall at the beginning of the session.

He was a mere blink away from her. She opened her mouth, taking a deep, though unneeded breath. She needed to get this out before her body gave her away.

"I didn't think you cared"

It was blurted out in a desperate breath but no louder than a whisper. It had its effect nonetheless. She saw his expression change in the slightest before he answered.

"Caring is normal for humans" he replied and she could not help but hear the cheeky, life-loving teenager that she had grown so fond of, in those words. He was still there.

"Are you a normal human?"

"I do hope so"

He was smiling faintly now. Oh God, how she had adored that smile. Beautiful on his features.

She couldn't help but reach out towards his face, trace the lines of that smile and enjoy the feel of his warm lips under her cool fingers.

"I apologize. For everything…for anything I should do" he murmured against her fingers, eyes still intense on hers. Willing her to understand, to accept his reasons.

She only shook her head, too moved by his words…his actions, to do anything else. She needed a moment to think about this new situation. The greater picture didn't look too good.

She was letting the 'prisoner' get to her. She had retrieved the information which she had been called in for but she had refused to do him any real damage – if anything, she had merely weakened him by drinking from him and attacking his mind, which had lead to mental torture without her knowledge.

That didn't matter though. Now, she had a new dilemma - she wanted him back.

Or to be more precise, she wanted to get him out of here alive, unharmed and be with him as soon as this was over. This was almost as badly a craving as he bloodlust. It was confusing and overwhelming and most of all; dangerous.

Yet, looking into those pale eyes she knew she refused to let him die. She couldn't.

"I…" she cleared her head and focused back on reality, "I need to get you out"

"Out?" he echoed the word in surprise, "Why?"

"You're not going to die," was her simple reply as she stood up, pulling away from him.

"Why?" he repeated, unfolding his body to stagger into a standing position as well. His voice was hard, expecting an answer.

"I don't want you to die, alright?" she snapped, moving from his prying gaze. She needed to figure out a plan. Fast. Her time was limited.

"Katherine…"

"Don't give me some lecture now okay?" she pressed out, shocked anew by the sound of her name coming from his mouth. It sounded like it meant something, "I know this is cliché and I'm being a wimp for allowing myself to fall for your bullshit again and letting you go but it's not like I can help being in love like some crazy…"

She was interrupted quite suddenly and rudely when his mouth closed in on hers and his lips started pressing against hers with an urgency and passion she had neither expected nor experienced in a long time.

She pulled away immediately, more out of surprise than worry to get caught.

"What are you doing?" she gasped, "Just because…"

"You love me" he stopped her frantic tirade of words, "You said it"

"I…" she had? Since when had that turned into a natural sentence?

His faint smile had her groping for words to explain her slip-up and yet again he made her answer easy. "Do you still mean it?"

Silence.

"Do you really mean it?" he repeated, eyes alight with such sincerity that was so unlike the man she had known before. This one was honest with her.

It had all come out of nowhere and hit her way to fast.

Another pause. Eyes locked. His fingers clenched on her shoulders.

The white wall pressed against her back. His ragged breathing in her ear. The harsh light from above casting strange shadows on his face.

Not the mask of lies.

_His_ face.

"Of course." The feather-light murmur was all he'd ever needed.


End file.
